Sugar, Sugar (2013)
Using the beguiling substance of sugar as their medium, the ten artists of Sugar, Sugar at Brenda May Gallery in Sydney, engage notions of permanence given the transient nature of the material. With Shelley Miller’s Velocity exposed to all the elements, and slowly disintegrating, on the 2 Danks Street façade and Elizabeth Willing’s Goosebump being...
Elizabeth Willing – Dessert II
Elizabeth Willing, Dessert II, performed on 3 October 2013, Brenda May Gallery, Sydney, as part of the curated exhibition Sugar, Sugar, 1 to 19 October 2013. As part of Sugar, Sugar, Elizabeth Willing held an experimental meal that explored issues of excess through an extravagant consumption of sugar. On Thursday 3 October, Willing presented the...
Mylyn Nguyen – Sweet Tea
Only one more week until we install Sugar, Sugar at Brenda May Gallery! The work has started to arrive at the Gallery and I am incredibly proud of this exhibition, all of the artists are outstanding. The artwork below is one of the pieces included in the show and I was a bit more literal...
Janet Tavener – Asparagus Pie
The Sugar, Sugar exhibition will be installed at Brenda May Gallery in about three weeks and in the lead-up to the show, I will be sharing a selection of the work that will be on view. You can see Mylyn Nguyen’s carved sugar cube in the current issue of Vogue Living. This is the second...
Sugar, Sugar catalogue
The Sugar, Sugar exhibition catalogue is now available for download here. In addition to full-colour reproductions of the artworks featured in the exhibition, the catalogue features three essays about sugar in art. I wrote an essay titled Performative and Interactive Aspects of Sugar in Art, presenting the historical context of sugar in art with artworks by...
Sugar, Sugar exhibition
The artists for the upcoming exhibition Sugar, Sugar have now been finalised and the show will feature ten female artists working with sugar as their medium. The artists include Matina Bourmas, Irianna Kanellopoulou, Judith Klausner, Stephanie Jones, Claire McArdle, Shelley Miller, Mylyn Nguyen, Janet Tavener, Claire Anna Watson and Elizabeth Willing. Works range from carefully...
Gustave Courbet – Smoked Trout Smørrebrød
Smørrebrød is the Danish tradition of open-face sandwiches. A dark dense bread, usually a type of rye, is toasted and topped with smoked or pickled fish and other vegetables. In this version, the smoked trout is the star and so it is essential to purchase high-quality fish. I picked up a whole fish and carefully...
William Scott – Mackerel with Mixed Tomato Salad
The oil painting by William Scott was selected for this post by British artist May van Millingen. Rather than photographing the finished dish, van Millingen created an illustration of a recipe by Jamie Oliver (pictured below) of mackerel with mixed tomato salad. Her illustrations have been commissioned by many leading brands and more of her...
Now Accepting Proposals for ‘Sugar, Sugar’
I am pleased to announce that I will be curating a second art + food exhibition in October at Brenda May Gallery. We are now accepting proposals from professional practicing artists so please read the exhibition brief below and contact the Gallery with any questions or visit the submissions page for further details. In conjunction with...
Johan Briedé – Pumpkin Soup
Johan Briedé was a Dutch artist and graphic designer. His career was spent producing illustrations for various magazines and publications in the Netherlands. By the end of his career he produced around 130 bookplates in addition to the numerous drawings, paintings and etchings he completed. He was interested in the work of Vincent Van Gogh...
Al Munro – Flavoured Salts
The new series of drawings by Al Munro examining the arrangement of atoms within common foodstuffs including salt, sugar and vinegar, are featured in the current exhibition Art + Food: Beyond the Still Life at Brenda May Gallery in Sydney. In her artist statement, Munro writes “I am interesting in using drawing-based media to examine...